Saint's Row Preview

By Kristan Reed Published 27 May, 2005

Volition on Grand Theft Autopilot.

Soon every publisher will have a Grand Theft Also to call its own. Spawning from the fertile belly of Rockstar North's uber franchise we've already seen Take-Two (Mafia), Sony (Getaway), Activision (True Crime), VU Games (Simpsons Hit & Run, Scarface) and LucasArts (Mercenaries) score some of their biggest hits in years on the back of mission-based drivin' n' shootin', so it's hardly a massive shock to see some other publishing giants casting envious glances over their neighbour's fences.

Somewhat late to the party but no less determined is THQ, who debuted Volition's hiphop-flavoured gang warfare effort Saint's Row for the first time last week, promising a true next generation interpretation of The Genre That Everyone Seems To Have An Unquenchable Thirst For.

Playing to the crowd

Putting to one side that it's yet another third-person shooter/driving game with gang warfare overtones ("there's a huge market of people who want to experience this type of gaming," THQ rightly points out) it is the first next generation title in this genre, being as it is for Xbox 360 only and full of the latest graphical frippery, no load delays, advanced vehicle damage modelling and AI techniques. Okay, so originality clearly went out of the window, but let's hear them out.

In terms of pushing the technology THQ is certainly proud of the technological achievements by Volition, one of its internally owned studios, and the chaps behind the Red Faction games and the dark comic portrayal of The Punisher (not to mention Descent, if you go back far enough). "Because Volition is internally owned we can ask them to develop the tech and explore certain areas, and it has been working on developing its own proprietary tech for three years," says THQ's Mickey Torode.

"It's been well positioned to experiment in this, and one of the lessons was you can't have a linear script in an openworld game," he argues, pointing to the AI and associated Respect systems by way of example.

Is that AI or AIEE?

'Saint's Row' Screenshot 2

"Every character in the game has their own AI. For example, depending on what you've done in the past and your respect levels, if they meet you some will run away in fear, some will give money, and as your notoriety rises the aggressive guys will react different. If you're driving along some AI will stop and try and run you off the road." He also paints another scenario of complete choice and consequence. You could, for example, go into a store and buy an item. Alternatively you could pull a gun on them and steal it, or even wait until everyone's gone home and rob the store under the cover of darkness.

But it doesn't end there. You also have to think about who sees you and whether they'll recognise you, so if you're stupid enough to break into somewhere at night in your gang colours and someone sees you, the owners and associated characters will know you've broken in and react to you negatively from there on and lose respect. Break in in disguise, or have that disguise rumbled, and the outcome will be different again. It's a game with consequences.

In terms of the graphics, it's another area Volition and THQ are keen to trumpet, with many cutting edge features giving the game a more realistic look and feel. The Havok 3 physics, for example, give the game a weight and depth when driving around or generally knocking into everyday objects, while the ragdoll effects mean everyone reacts convincingly during combat and the like. Volition also promises extensive car damage modelling meaning vehicles will bend and crumple when they hit obstacles and breakdown to their component parts during an explosion. Wheels will roll down the road and become objects that you need to genuinely avoid.

Caught in the headlights

'Saint's Row' Screenshot 3

The dynamic lighting, meanwhile, gives each scene a more rounded, believable atmosphere, with small touches like the muzzle flash, or car headlights added, while the use of next gen shaders adds the finishing touch. With crafted, well animated character modelling that screams "Bling" from every Burberry pore it's a stylistic look completely at odds with anything THQ (or Volition for that matter) has attempted before. It's about as far away from Martian mining disasters as you could imagine.

The level of personalisation that you can add to the game will also no doubt resonate with many in the target audience, too, with a bewildering array of customisations you can add to your car, not to mention the ability to completely personalise your look and even create your own custom character to play the game with. It's very much all about Bling, but you knew that anyway. "There are hundreds of different options," we're reliably informed. "You can customise your character with clothes, jewellery, cars and weapons. The more style you add to your character, the more respect you command." As Aretha Franklin didn't say: R-E-S-P-E-C-ME.

But enough bling/technobabble about how swanky Saint's Row looks. What about the game itself? First of all, the game's set in fictional American urban surroundings of Still Water (no, not inspired by hooded-top central Blue Water. This is a place loosely based around Illinois, we're assured). You play as a low level member of the 3rd Street Saints, "a gang trying desperately to take back the streets from three rival gangs that hold the city".

Gang busters

'Saint's Row' Screenshot 4

And it’s the rival gang element that forms the rock of the game's determinedly non-linear sandbox structure, where players get to fight their way to control all three gang territories in any order to gain overall supremacy before getting to take on the corrupt officialdom. Under attack on all four sides of the map, it's ultimately up to you to consolidate and earn enough respect to work your way up the ladder up four levels of your gang to become the Kingpin.

Set in what THQ calls a "living, breathing environment," the overall map is split into 35 different territories, held by either the Rollers, Cardinals or the Vice ([groan] come on chaps, try harder) Kings. "It's an openwold game with no constraints, so if you want to attack a certain point of the city you can," Torode explains. "As you take them over your rank rises. You get their business, and when you finish the mission that part of city turns green on the map, but the way you take over bits of the city is entirely up to you."

As we touched on before, much of the game is about earning respect, and that can be gained in all manner of ways. "Everything you do; the clothes you wear, how you drive, how you walk, how violent you are, affects the Respect score," he explains, "and ratings unlock the mission. Certain things will affect score - if all you do is shoot people it'll be tough. You don't have to do the mission; in fact if you're good enough you can win the game without playing the missions - for example you could just arrange races and build respect that way. It's up to you." It's certainly an interesting contrast to the GTA way of doing things where entire areas of the game world are effectively blocked off until you slog through dozens of missions. Interestingly, the incentive to building up your respect score is always there, with other gangs free to attack you until you make the effort to build it up to 100 per cent.

Calm down dear, it's not a real man

'Saint's Row' Screenshot 5

But, according to our man at THQ, it's not all drivin' n' shootin' n' lootin' n' pimpin' with flamethrowers, snipers, "and then some" around a city "roughly the size of Vice City". There's, oooh, so much more. "The sheer range of activities is awesome: insurance fraud by injuring yourself, tagging, pimping, picking up call girls, driving celebs around, avoiding the press... it's great."

Anything else? Ah yes, audio. The popular radio concept of GTA has been cribbed somewhat, with "literally hundreds of licensed tracks" across 10 radio stations featuring two humorous talk stations. The thus-far unannounced selection will be "modern day American", but with the reassuring promise of more crowd-pleasing "normal" music, whatever that is. Give us bling gameplay to the sounds of The Smiths, The Stone Roses, The Beatles and Arcade Fire, we say. Or not. Believe it or not Neds Atomic Dustbin will be in there, possibly the most anti-Bling musical combo we've ever come across in our entire lives, but, hey, internal music tastes at THQ have to be catered for...

"The radio provides important clues," he adds. "You'll hear adverts that get you a special deal in shops, or a talk show might discuss the location of a one off race meet. In the Carnell story you might hear news report of shipping activity and be able to get down there and pick up something cool."

Criiiiiiiib people

'Saint's Row' Screenshot 6

To delight the persistent players (which, let's face it, you have to be to really get the most out of sandbox games), unlockables also figure in the mix, with licensed tracks to discover, as well as jewellery, designer clothes, tattoos and other "cool toys for your crib". Can we just have it on the record that our house will never, ever, be known as our 'crib'? Thanks. We'll move on now.

Online will also figure large and loud, we're told: "We've taken on board that co-op is the key thing." Scanning the presentation double quick we spotted a deathmatch-style mode called 'Big Ass Chains' where the idea is to get their chain and take it to a pawn shop, while another called 'Blinged Out Ride' is one for the Daily Mail readers - a drive-by shooting mode with the idea to destroy other cars, get the money, pimp up you car and come back to the moshpit. (We thought moshpits were where hairy Neds fans lurked...). Finally we also clocked a mode called Protect The Pimp, with the idea simply to try to protect The Man while a rival gang tries to take him out. Sounds like your average night out in Harlesden or Kensal Rise...

No release date has been announced for Saint's Row as yet, but we're expecting the game to arrive before Christmas, so expect a more concrete impression of THQ's big Xbox 360 hope in the months ahead.

Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • souljah #1 7 years ago

    Woooohoooooo!

    GTA in cargo pants!

  • Madder-Max #2 7 years ago

    I'll buy that for a dollar! Anything based on GTA with added content is a winner imo...

  • Grom #3 7 years ago

    Good luck to them but the Saints Row E3 video wins 'shittiest video ever shown at any E3 ever'

    Seemed to have foregone the charismatic humour of GTA for a brash, unpleasant, amateurish mess bereft of any sort of charm whatsoever.

  • drumbaby #4 7 years ago

    Cor, makes me want to pop a cap in my ass!

  • oerhoert #5 7 years ago

    Meh. Apart from finally fixing the stupidly long and frequent load times often experienced with GTA:SA on the PS2, what are they actually trying to do? Yeah, I know the article tried to point that out.

    Just like with games like Doom and Myst, this major hit (GTA) is getting a lot of unnecessary me-too followers for years to come. Yeah, I'm sceptical. At least Mafia mostly didn't try to be "just like GTA". Hence, a better game.

  • Shadrach #6 7 years ago

    I'm with Grom on this one, that video was pure shite. By the numbers 'street' bollocks was what I got from it. So there.

  • markypants #7 7 years ago

    "frequent load times in GTA:SA"

    ?? What load times?

    This pisses me off no end. There won't be another GTA until Rockstar make one!! Nobody has out done the GTA franchise. It's not just about graphics, it's about getting the right tone/style and all these things Rockstar basically invented. I wish developers would try and think out of the box and not 're-do' what has been done, but try and beat rockstar to the future. I mean come on, how many 'GangsaRRR' games are coming out now since GTA did GTA:SA?? Loads and loads. And are GTA going to do the same genre again next time?? I doubt it, and then we can look forward to even more GTA clones of whatever they do next.

    ArrrGGGhhHH.

    /looks outside. Nice and sunny. Relaxes. Takes deep breath. Looks back at monitor to see ANOTHER GOD DAMN GTA CLONE THAT WILL BE CRAP...

  • Kiigan #8 7 years ago

    Sure, there seemed to be loads of tedious GTA clones and gritty urban brawlers at E3 this year. Can't really blame them for trying though, since it's a proven formula with even tat like True Crime and Driv3r selling large numbers.

    Also, given how piss-poor the GTA games have been in recent years, there's plenty of room for someone to come in and beat them at their own game. Whether someone can actually do it or not remains to be seen, but at least Saint's Row looks a bit nicer than most of the other wannabees. Competition is good, let's see how it turns out.

  • ejstyles #9 7 years ago

    GTA? Piss-poor? Don't mug yourself. Probably the best 3 games in terms of innovation this console generation. Decent licensed music? Vice City's even got bikes in it! Secondly, big up Kensal Rise! Good to see it being represented in such high-class media. Unfortunately, it's 'North Notting Hill' now dahling, full of 25-year old internet millionaires and latte houses playing world music. Man, I miss the days when it was spoken of in the same breath as Harlesden. Alas, those are long gone.

  • RandolphScott #10 7 years ago

    It doesn't look very next-gen. Maybe they're concentrating on the derivative gameplay.

  • ozgamer #11 7 years ago

    GTA series will never be topped. Give it up try-hards!

  • Destria #12 7 years ago

    Make Freespace 3 y'bastards!

  • Darren #13 7 years ago

    I thought the gameplay video looked great personally apart from popup and draw in. It looks like a more polished open GTA and if they get the gameplay right then that's no bad thing since it will be awhile before the Xbox 360 gets a proper GTA from Rockstar. I like the multiplayer ideas, that something that wasn't exploited properly in the last GTA.

  • VibratingDonkey #14 7 years ago

    "Volition on Grand Theft Autopilot.."
    That just about sums it all up.

  • Whizzo #15 7 years ago

    Make Freespace 3 y'bastards!

    The Taco Commander owns that now.

    I'm quite happy for people to make GTA type games as long as they're good.

    The more I edit the worse it gets...
    Edited by 4 at 27/05/05 @ 13:41

  • glaeken #16 7 years ago

    This makes perfect sense for buisness. The next GTA game is bound to be Sony exclusive for a year or so which means no GTA for Xbox360 for a very long time. So If Xbox360 has its own compotent rip off it has the chance of doing very well. Specially if they sell it as the only real next gen GTA type game available.

    Is their even another GTA game in development at the moment?

  • Bezzy #17 7 years ago

    You know, if the clothing editor was diverse enough, it would have been nice to have every flavour of ganster in there. Contemporary Mafia, Classic Mafia, Russian Mafia, EVIL EVIL HAITIANS, West End Thugs, Triad, Yakuza, Exeter and Mid-Devon Posse, or Kubrick style Ultra Violence dudes. Whatever you want to come up with!

    You could have gotten Will Wright's flavour of user authored content into the mix.

    "Make and style your own Gang", like that Takeshi Beat film "Brother".
    Edited by 2 at 27/05/05 @ 18:19

  • #18 7 years ago

    Three Words.

    Sure Fire Hit!

  • Kiigan #19 7 years ago

    Nah. Let's face it - Vice City and San Andreas were cool products - stylish, great music and humour, but fucking rotten games to actually play. San Andreas particularly has some of the worst mission design of any game I have ever played. They've gone for scale without really thinking about why. GTA doesn't need to be as huge as Vice City or San Andreas - half the size but with more fun stuff to do would be a big improvement. GTA looks rubbish, plays badly, has dreadful combat, some really awful AI bugs that can cause you fail missions when it isn't your fault, some horrible fragile missions such as the cross-country race, or the flying-under-radar missions in SA, or just broken stuff like the RC levels. And then we get to the half-assed RPG elements, tedious concessions to realism like constantly having to eat, work-out and all that shit. It's more boring than real life.
    Almost all of the side missions, minigames and other stuff such as the wardrobe system are so poorly implemented that they aren't worth bothering with.

    GTA3 is still the best of the series, despite the bugs. San Andreas... well GTA should really be a lot better by now.
    Edited by 2 at 28/05/05 @ 12:18

  • #20 7 years ago

    Click on the link if you want to know how much Sony are
    crapping there pants about the Xbox 360!

    http://www.ccfx.net/nextbo xforum/viewtopic.php?t=2322&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

  • Genji #21 7 years ago

    Bling!

  • stoopidgreg #22 7 years ago

    i think this game looks and sounds good so far, i don't know why everyone is automatically dismissing it just because it's a GTA-style game. but when it comes down to it there's only so much you can say about a game and all the features it has; you really have to just play it to know whether it feels right. and in the case of bettering GTA, that's a hard nut to crack since rockstar have pretty much got it down to an art.

  • Nikanoru #23 7 years ago

    This is supposed to be next-gen?

    lol

  • Syrette #24 7 years ago

    Nikanoru, are you kidding me?

    sure theres more impressive stuff out there but i for one don't think Saint's Row looks bad at all. i saw some of the videos on IGN and it certainly looks next-gen in my opinion, though they did say it was only running at around 30% of the X360's performance levels so i expect the graphics to improve a lot between now and launch.

  • 3william56 #25 7 years ago

    Does it have GeoMod in it? So waiting for a NextGen geomod equipped game. Too ambitious for the PS2 really, but it was a real kick to blow a circle of holes with the rocket launcher and watch the centre drop out.

  • moggsy #26 7 years ago

    Kiigan, sure some of the stuff you mention in GTA:SA is annoying. This only makes up for 10% of the games worth though. The missions were plenty varied and challenging, the sheer scale of the cities and the number of different vehicles available to joyride (including air, land & sea) are breathtaking. The music and dj speal is entertaining in it's own right. I could go on...

    If GTA:SA didn't float your boat have you ever thought about taking up a different hobby? ;-)

  • Madder-Max #27 7 years ago

    To Kiigan. Dunno what game you've been playing then. I'm on my 3rd play through of SA and it still has an original buzz to it. Dunno about theses mission-hampering bugs you speak of though and the countryside chases are some of the best. dont drive too fast and keep within the handling capabillities of the vehicle and you'll win.

    /Reinforces GTA camp defenses...not that I'm camp nor that anyone defending SA is camp but camp as in tents and stuff...;0)
    Edited by 1 at 31/05/05 @ 13:52

  • Kiigan #28 7 years ago

    I like my hobby just fine moggsy, thanks :) There's a lot more to gaming than the GTA series (a series I feel is rather over-rated, considering we've seen it all in Mercenary and Elite years ago anyway).

    Like I said, GTA SA is a great product. Great music, style, attitude etc. As a game though, it's mostly bloody awful. The missions I mentioned are just the tip of the iceberg - almost all of the mini-games, side-missions and missions are dreadful. The game is just too big, too shit. GTA3 was a smaller, more focused affair, and was more fun because of it.

    Sure, the core appeal of running around the world causing trouble and stealing cars is still satisfying but... we've been doing that for years now with GTA3 and GTA Vice City and it really hasn't moved on much. The series badly needs to evolve, and not with more tedious concessions to realism either (having to work out, change clothes, eat food etc...). Maybe the next GTA will have "breathe air" button that you have to press a regular interval - not too fast or your character hyperventilates. Fun!

  • Kiigan #29 7 years ago

    Robbing Uncle Sam. Wu Zi Mu. N.O.E. Air Raid. Low Rider. Etc. Nuff said.

  • Madder-Max #30 7 years ago

    Kiigan. Have you actually played GTA sa?

  • moggsy #31 7 years ago

    Fair enough Kiigan - each to their own.

    Personally I feel that GTA:SA is the ultimate game - one which I'd been waiting since the 80's to play. Remember
    Turbo Esprit
    on the speccy? I loved that game at the time and GTA:SA has the same spirit but with a 1000 times more complexity, graphical prowess and ultimately fun. Can't wait for GTA4 on the PS3!

    /shuffles off with more 'when I were a lad' mumblings...


    OK I give up - how do you get links to work in comments?
    Edited by 4 at 31/05/05 @ 18:26

  • Nikanoru #32 7 years ago

    Nikanoru, are you kidding me?

    No.

  • Groovicron #33 7 years ago

    I'll side with Bezzy on the design your own gang side, or even just adding in more styles of gang. All this "Check me I'm a big hip-hop stylee gangsta!" toss can just bugger off.

    Any one who acts like that looks like a total retard in real life, why the hell would I want to play a game where I have to be one?!

  • PixD #34 7 years ago

    I agree with Kiigan. Why do you all care so much about a game that you know nothing about and that hasn't even been released, and you find time to knock it?

    I'd rather wait until I've played it to make a judgment. From what I've read so far, it sounds good. You can change the look any way you want. You could be black, latino, asian, whatever... You don't have to be the white boy in that video.

    Pick up a copy of Game Informer magazine or read http://previews.teamxbox.com/xbox/1020/Saints-Row/p1

    There is a good in-game footage here too especially the Camcorder one: http://www. xboxyde.com/leech_1441_en.html
    http://www.xboxy de.com/game_791.html

    You want to stick to GTA? That's fine by me. Your loss. I'll stick to GTA AND play Saint's Row when it come out. More games for me.

  • Glitch #35 6 years ago

    I dont get why some of your kids are knocking this game?

    If they get the gameplay and story line spot on, it will obviously be alot better than GTA. Whats the problem?

    GTA was good but its time for next gen to move in.

    As long as it is GTA but on acid its all good!